I saw the library, the workshops, the chapel and the hospital, but he would not take me among the male prisoners. The sex problem is not without interest. One forgets, that to a man with a life sentence it is not very fair to parade women visitors. I sat up in the balcony with the guard and watched the men assemble in the yard for lockup. They were of such varied types and mostly so young. In front of them, like a giant patio, surrounded by the prison buildings was a huge parterre of brilliant dahlias all bathed in the setting sunlight. These flowers have gone forth into the outside world, and won prizes at the local flower shows. Hanging from the verandah roof in front of the upper story cells, baskets of growing flowers were suspended by wires, a curious contrast. There were a few negroes among the crowd. Some Chinese and one or two prisoners conspicuous by their wide striped uniforms. These were the men who had broken parole. One man I noticed who did clerk work in one of the prison offices, he walked across the patio at lockup time and he held his head high and walked with an almost insolent assurance. His hands were the hands of a man of breeding and he smoked a cigarette through a long amber holder--I pointed him out to the guard--“a forger--” he said, indifferently. I asked about the negroes--“I suppose they have done desperate things--?” The guard shook his head, “they’re not half such bad chaps, most of them, as some of the white men--” I stayed till the big bell sounded and the motley humans were locked up for the night. Then I went back and talked to Warden Johnston. He is severe and looks hard, but his theory is to accomplish the regeneration of men’s souls through kindness and trust, and not the brutalization of a man into a stone. He hopes that most of these men when they come out may have a new chance in life and make a success. When I got home late for dinner, I told where I had been. Constance looked surprised and even perplexed. “Did you _want_ to see another prison--?” “Well, _such_ a prison, yes,” “How did you get from San Raffaele to the prison?” “In a taxi--” ... Exclamations--how did I dare trust myself to an unknown taxi, how did I know when I told the driver to go to St. Quentin prison three miles off that he was taking me there? I didn’t quite know what to say. But it seemed to me that if I wasn’t safe to go in a taxi from San Rafaele to St. Quentin this must be a far more dangerous country than Russia or Mexico and then she asked me this strange question in reply to my account! “Did you _want_ to talk with the women prisoners for an hour--?” I thought of all the hours we had spent talking with women in the sheltered verandahs of Burlingame, and I did not dare to tell her that the women of St. Quentin had roused in me a desire to go to prison, so as to gain some human understanding. OCTOBER 29, 1921. _Los Angeles._